Ep 92 - Mike Allen and Bryan Pollock | Should Advisors Be On Flat Rate?!?

0:00If you walked into your shop in the lube bay and you saw a GS with a breaker bar taking lug nuts off with a breaker bar instead of his impact gun, you'd probably have a WTF moment, right? So what's going on with these service advisors that aren't using the tools? It's the same concept, right? They're choosing to use a breaker bar to take lug nuts off instead of removing them with an impact gun.

0:17They're choosing— that's the way I've always done it, which we get it. And the point is not to pick on advisors necessarily. I feel like this conversation is kind of stick on advisors. The following program features a bunch of doofuses talking about the automotive of Aftermarket. The stuff we or our guests may say do not necessarily reflect the beliefs of our peers, our sponsors, or any other associations we may have.

0:42There may be some spicy language in this show, so if you get your feelings hurt easily, you should probably just move along. So without further ado, here's your host, Mike Allen, with Confessions of a Shop Owner, presented by TechMetric. Simply the best software ever made. When in doubt, always choose workplace violence. Is that what you're saying? Yeah, when in doubt, if, uh, raising your voice doesn't work, it's time to raise the hand, Mike.

1:14Yeah, it's from the movie McClintock, did you know that? Uh, you know, I don't know that I've seen the movie McClintock, but I think I know who the main character was, the star. Yeah, um, he looks like somebody in our industry actually. Yeah, John Wayne. Yeah, anyway, that's the one. Um, so I wanted to get together and chat because I just wanted us to, you know, get to know each other ourselves a little bit.

1:36Hi, my name is Mike. Oh yeah, I'm Brian. I like long walks on the beach and, uh, auto repair. I used to have a t— oh God, is it gonna go this far off the rails right away? I used to have a t-shirt that I would wear, uh, before I got— before I met my wife, when I was even more obnoxious than I am now.

1:55And it was like an '80s style silhouette with the sunset in the background and two people walking hand in hand down the beach. And I said, I love long walks on the beach after anal. Oh my gosh, you were ahead of your time, really. I got it. It was a website called T-Shirt Hell, and they had a section that was called Worse Than Hell.

2:16Worse Than Hell, and that's where you got it from? Yeah. Um, it was perfect. Really horribly offensive stuff. I had one that on the front it was— counter went up and big block letters that said free hugs. Nice. Because of the anal joke. Yes. Uh, free hugs on the front, and on the back it had a trophy with a wreath around it, and it said world champion slut hugger.

2:37Oh my gosh. And so you go into the bars and like, oh, you're gonna hug, and then you turn around and walk away and wait for the reaction. Oh, that's it, we're canceled. Poor choices. I mean, choices were made. It's a miracle I'm alive still. Oh gosh. But anyway, we haven't had an episode together in forever because our travel schedule has taken us to different events.

3:00And yes, and we've had lots of good conversations. I mean, there's Vision Tectonic. You just got back from Tools where you did a bunch of great, great recordings that will probably be far more technically sound and reasonable because I wasn't there. So that's good. I tried really hard to stay away from any actual technical type conversation. Why? That was your opportunity to not have my obnoxious— I don't think, I don't think that's the— I don't think that's the whole point of this.

3:31I, I tried really hard to stay on task, which is hard for me because I have weapons-grade ADHD. So it's— I mean, I put in my best effort, which will be subpar compared to the average effort, but you know, that's what you get. You, you chose me, you know, what can I say? Our ADHD combined makes for, content that is amusing to other people who suffer from our affliction, um, and annoying to some people who are more focused in their life.

3:58Definitely. As a matter of fact, in the entire world of mediocre automotive podcasts, there is one mediocre automotive podcaster who was really disgruntled with our level of ADHD. Really? Yeah, it was funny. Weird. Oh, that's right, I almost forgot. Squirrel. Yeah, it's funny, he's still liking the post. That's weird. Anyways, I mean, it's because— it's because you're awesome. Probably. He probably feels good.

4:26Hot takes. So I wanted to get together and talk because one of the events that I went to and I recorded at that you weren't able to make it to was Fuel and Connections from ASTA. And the speaker and trainer that was there was Becky Witt. And, you know, she's known throughout the industry for being hyper-focused on efficiency. And, um, being— what's the shop time?

4:52Yeah, what's the shop time cost per minute, right? Yeah, cost per minute, right? And, uh, you know, her whole thing was trying to get so crazy efficient that they could produce in 2.5 days what a normal shop produces in 5 days. Um, I think it's possible. Well, and I think she said that they're really more at like 3, 3.5 days, right? But still, right?

5:17To produce a 5-day shop's volume in 3 days is pretty damn good, right? Yep. And so I took that, uh, and I was thinking about, you know, I went back to the shop and we were talking about, uh, technicians' time, uh, in terms of dollars per minute, right? Um, and, you know, she's not the first person to utilize that tool as a teaching tool.

5:42Sure. You know, breaking down revenue, parts and labor, parts per hour, all that good stuff, that kind of thing. But she does articulate it well. And I was like, well, why don't we do the same thing with our service advisors' time? Because I combined that with a conversation I had with Hunt Damros from Parmelis, um, who also has another great mediocre automotive podcast that's focused on the, uh, the book side of it.

6:08Um, and, uh, We're all mediocre, dude. None of us are good at what we do. Um, no. And he was talking about, uh, we were at— I was at my Elite, uh, 20 group meeting in, uh, in Colorado, and we were in Fort Collins at Huska Automotive in Fort Collins, which is an incredible organization. Uh, oh, I think you told me about that.

6:33Yep. Yeah, they're doing bigger numbers than the self-professed biggest auto repair shop in the country. Uh, every month, and they're, uh, they're doing it kind of like the way that we all did it. They just do it better than us. Yeah, and bigger. Um, but anyway, um, Hunt was talking about how, uh, shops that are really zeroed in on their processes and, uh, have good margins are typically 2 technicians to an advisor or more.

7:082.5 up to 3, and then there's a point of diminishing return when it's more than 3 typically. Uh, so you want to be in that 2.2 and a third to 2.5 range, uh, techs per advisor. Um, if you got your systems right and you're doing things right, that's going to be your best, most effective way, right? Um, and I was more like 1.8, 1.9, um, across the company.

7:33And so I was like, you know, I don't, and everybody's telling me I need to hire another advisor. We need another advisor, we're just too busy. We got too much going on. And so Steven— But are they? But are they? So here's the thing, outdated SMS, just, they don't just slow you down, they cost you money. And I learned it the hard way.

7:54Before Techmetric, I was wasting time on inefficient processes, manual updates, back and forth calls with customers. Now I handle everything in one place. DVI, customer communications, payments, real-time reporting— it's all in one page. Since making the switch, my average repair order has jumped from $293 to $916. And it's not just me. TechMetric powers almost 10,000 shops nationwide. By the time you're hearing this, it probably will be 10,000 shops, helping them grow and operate smarter.

8:24If you're tired of losing time and money to outdated systems, tap the link in the show notes. And see what TechMetric can do for you. Hey guys, Kari Lynn with Turnkey Marketing. If you are looking to increase cars and you're looking for the right demographic to go after, you want to get the right people who need auto repair right now, then give us a call.

8:43We have a service called Direct Track and it utilizes AI to find people in your area who are the great demographic that you want to go after, have raised their hand and opted in saying, I need auto repair help right now. We send them an email. As soon as they open the email, we then get their physical address, follow it up with commercial ads on all their streaming services like Hulu and YouTube and ESPN, Fox News, all those different things.

9:09And then we also get their physical address and we start sending banner ads and display ads to every single device in that house. It has been incredibly effective. It has made shops seem like they're everywhere to those people who need repairs right then. And I mean, I'm telling you guys, the return on investment has been huge. So if you want to increase car count, you want to get great people in the door, give us a call or reach out to us and ask us about Direct Track Marketing.

9:39Yeah, but are they? Uh, hmm. Hmm. Stephen is my director of operations and he started digging deep and he started listening to every phone call. And, uh, inbound, outbound, and track. He even put a flat rate time on how long it should take to make an appointment, didn't he? So I, I think we're— why are we on for 14 minutes when an appointment can be made in 2?

10:01Well, we're gonna, we're gonna switch our advisors over to flat rate, and they're gonna get paid, uh, they're gonna get paid 1/10 per appointment booked. Um, and you know, if it takes them an hour and a half to book the appointment, that's fine. They're just gonna get paid 1/10. Could you imagine Could you— so we, we had a company-wide meeting, um, earlier this week and we broke it down and we're like, all right guys, here's the deal.

10:25Uh, our service advisors on average work about 10 hours a day. So you have a 10-hour day and we've, we've looked at every single inbound and outbound phone call for the last period of time. And on average across the company, a service advisor spends 2.5 hours on the phone per day. So now we're down to 7.5 hours. And we said, how long do you think a really good intake process and write-up process goes from the time they walk in the door to the time you hang the keys on the dispatch board?

10:52What's that time frame like if, if on average, because you have some big ones and some quick ones, right? Sure. And we agreed that that's 10 minutes. Okay. 10 minutes. And how long from the time that they walk in the door until they leave with their keys to check out? Right. And if we've done everything right along the step, that's probably a 5 or 6 minute conversation.

11:13Sure. So 15 minutes per customer. Yeah, we're doing 6.8 cars per advisor per day. So call it 7. 7. We rounded it up to 20. So that's 2 hours and 20 minutes a day. You know what, let's round it up to 2 hours and 30 minutes. Now we're at 5 hours of the day. So we got 5 hours left. Yeah. Well, you know, we need to audit repair orders, review the repair order, make sure that all the right parts are on there.

11:39Sometimes we got to go back and ask questions with the technician, that kind of thing, and make sure that the— 10 minutes ago, right? Yeah. So we, we told them 20 minutes per car on that too. Okay. We're trying to be really giving on that. So again, 7 minutes or 7 cars a day rounded up to 2.5 hours. Now, now we're at 7.5 hours.

11:54So we got 2.5 hours. So if it's not, if it's not on the phone because the sales conversation happens on the phone, right. And that's already accounted for. And if it's not greeting a customer or checking a customer out and it's not RO audits, What are the other 2.5 hours going to? And I said, we need to start thinking about this in terms of, you know, a high-level technician knows their job and they put all the tools they need for that job or they expect to need for that job in their cart and they roll over the car so they're not trekking back and forth to the toolbox.

12:28Right. What would the industry do if every technician in every bay had 2.5 hours a day unaccounted for? I bet they do on average. They probably do. That's why the industry is so jacked up, right? Yeah, that's why it's so jacked up, right? They— high-level efficient technicians. That's why people are on Facey Space complaining about tech efficiency, right? Yeah. Well, and but if you think about it, every time we, uh, we talk about like superstar technician, we're talking about efficiency and productivity, right?

12:56Yeah. Um, accurately addressing the issues efficiently. Why don't we do that with our service advisors? I don't know, why don't we judge their efficiency and have them clock in and out of every repair order to judge how much time they're doing? And is it that because tech efficiency, because of the flat rate manual, right, is it because tech efficiency is so much easier to measure that we hyperfocus on tech efficiency?

13:22And when it comes to front-end efficiency, we say eff it. And when you start looking into things, a lot of times when there's a productivity issue it's getting communicated. It's, it's, it has to do with a holdup in the front end. And I'm not saying all the times, dude, don't get me wrong, there's crappy techs that just burn the freaking clock, man.

13:43There's no doubt in that. And I'm not here to argue that there are shitty performers in every position in the industry. But I mean, if you take, if you have a company where you've hired for attitude over ability and you have everybody facing the same direction on the same page trying to do the best job where do you think the efficiency hangup typically is?

14:04Do you think it's typically in the bay, or do you think there's— and even if it's— even if we don't have to blame it on one thing or another, maybe it's half and half. Well, do you think we should address both halves or just one half, right? I think in the average shop, it's death by a thousand paper cuts. There's inefficiencies in every step of the process, um, but the one that we as an industry always get hyper-focused on is the technician.

14:26Yeah. And I feel like— so, I mean, we had this conversation in the company meeting and it was like, well, it's not like your phone time is a 2.5-hour solid block and then you're not on the phone for the rest of the day. So there's mental gear shifting going from— I'm looking at that, I agree, just taking a phone call, the same conversation we have about taking technicians off of big jobs to handle some BS that you didn't schedule properly.

14:46Oh, what do you know, mental gear shifting. Oh my gosh, it's not efficient. I can't believe it. So There were some uncomfortable— there's some uncomfortable people in that conversation at the shop when I started talking about, what the fuck are you doing? Probably. Oh wait, you're cool saying what the fuck? Because they're advisors and not techs, and they don't have to live that every single day of their life, selling their soul 6 minutes at a time for 25 fucking years.

15:10Oh sorry, did I say that out loud? Well, so here's the funny thing, like, I didn't draw the analogy to technician's life the whole time, so the technicians were just kind of sitting back watching the conversation and the service advisors were getting more and more uncomfortable, right? Uh, and then I was like, but wait, there's what— the conversation we're having right now is the entire life of technicians for the last 40 years.

15:35Yeah, right. They are judged minute by minute, footstep by footstep. Oh my God, how many— enormously in tools to make themselves more efficient. And then I went over and we had already talked about, uh, you know, all of our software solutions for efficiency. I was like, and here are all the softwares that we have subscribed to so that you can be more efficient as advisor and you're not fucking learning to use it.

15:59The process in the shop, not only is it judged by people who are hyper-focused on efficiency, even me now, I'm not, you know me, I'm not a hyper-focused on efficiency type of guy. I need the job done right, dude. If somebody, you want to see me start vibrating, Put somebody on a job that's got 3 hours on the ticket and put them in a different bay than what their toolbox is in.

16:19I will start vibrating. I'm like, why is that guy walking an extra 8 steps every time to go get his tools? I'm like, this is freaking crazy. What do we do? I mean, that should— that shouldn't happen. Sometimes it does happen. Yeah, but he should also have a cart that he can load all that shit in. Sure. And I agree with that.

16:36But that's probably— probably doesn't work great in the Rust Belt because you don't know what size socket you're going to need for the 15mm bolt because it might be 10mm by the time you're done. But anyways, well, I mean, if— but if you think about it, the really nice roll cart is an innovation developed by technicians to increase efficiency so that they didn't have to walk back and forth.

16:59100%. Um, and to your point, you're investing in all this software, all this training, and all these tools. How many— how many front-of-house subscriptions do you pay monthly for service writer aid, not counting TechMetric? Well, there's TechMetric, right? And I want to come back and talk to you about TechMetric and you're finally leaving the covered wagon and moving into the new age.

17:21Yes. So proud of you. But there's like TechAid IQ. So we have TechAid IQ, Golden Hour Garage, Detect Auto, Shift Auto, because they all do something. There's an overlap for all of them and they all do some things differently and we're trying to figure out which ones are the best for us. Right, a half dozen. Long story short, probably a half dozen monthly subscriptions to 8 advisors.

17:46Yeah, $1,000 plus per month easily, right? Uh, and it's like, just fucking use the tools. I understand that the first time you use the tool, it's not going to save you time because you're learning to use a new tool. Sure, you have to— I mean, you have to learn how to use the tool properly before you can find out if it's going to be absolutely But that being said, if you walked into your shop in the lube bay and you saw a GS with a breaker bar, uh, taking lug nuts off with a breaker bar instead of his impact gun, you'd probably have a WTF moment, right?

18:20So what's going on with these service advisors that aren't using the tools? It's the same concept, right? They're choosing— they're choosing to use a breaker bar to take lug nuts off instead of removing them with an impact gun. They're choosing, that's the way I've always done it. Yeah. Which we get it, and the point is not to pick on advisors necessarily. I feel like this conversation is kind of to pick on advisors.

18:41I'm really trying not to, but they do the darndest things, Mike. Of all the jobs in an auto repair shop, it's the one that I have the most time doing before I became a terrible boss. I, uh, I have no interest in doing it. What I've actually found is typically when a customer walks in the office, the best thing I can do for this entire business is walk out the back door of the office.

19:00Because they're going to say something illogical. And I have, you know, I have a thing where words mean things, and I hyperfocus on when the wrong things are said that are incorrect, and I have to go straight to correcting them instead of just shutting up and collecting the money. So the best thing I can do is walk out the back door, and it's less frustration for me.

19:20So yeah, I don't want the advisor's job. Um, and I think at our place, you know, I think at our place, our advisors do a fantastic job. They really do. Elite clients don't just learn more, they do more. We help shop owners build stronger teams, improve profitability, and create systems that don't fall apart when you step away. The goal isn't just growth.

19:43The goal is sustainable success and a life you actually enjoy living. Elite Worldwide. Okay, here's the deal. Uh, at VISION, I recorded an episode with Keith Perkins and Seth Thorson, and I figured that we were going to talk about NASDEF stuff the whole time, but we ended up talking about AI the whole time. And they had just taught a class on building your own AI agents within your business, and it was an incredible conversation.

20:10And then after we recorded that, I went out into the show floor at VISION, and I talked to a ton of people who had been at the class, and they were talking about how 3 hours in that class had changed their entire perspective on AI, and they were building their own tools in just 3 hours of training. You know, it blew my mind.

20:26I've got to have that in my business. And so here's the deal: on Saturday, June 13th, I'm flying Seth to Raleigh, North Carolina, and we are going to have a full day— not 3 hours, but a full day class, breakfast, lunch, and dinner included. If you want to come down the night before on Friday the 12th, we're going to do Friday night shenanigans at my business at the Car Fix Bar and Lounge.

20:46It's going to be a great time. I think it's going to change the nature of how we do business. This class is for owners and GMs only. There are limited seats available for class because it's very hands-on. You're going to need your laptop. You're going to need an active subscription to the AI of your choice. I recommend ChatGPT and Claude AI. Early sign-up discount, it's $899.

21:06If you sign up after May 17th, it's $1,299. Tap the link in the show notes or scan the QR code on your screen to learn more. It's going to be awesome. That being said, we have our advisors handling more than a typical advisor would. Um, they don't do as much data collection up front, so they don't— we don't have a process where they really go walk around the car with the customer in the parking lot or meet the customer at the car or whatever, which is— and they will sometimes if, you know, the customer has a complaint where the advisor thinks they need to go look at something, they absolutely will.

21:38We don't have a process like that, but man, as far as simple estimates go, I would say our advisors write probably 90% of the estimates themselves. And that is, do you have a threshold where they need to review the ticket with a technician before they make the call? Every single ticket. Every ticket. So for us, anything over 3 hours, we need to have reviewed.

22:03No, every— everything. If the technician says the thing needs brakes and the technician has brake measurements right now, soon to not be because we're actually onboarding with TechMetric right now. So there will be pictures available for them. Justin or William. Or Jeff out in Lockport or Seth across the street at the fleet shop is getting up, stopping what they're doing, walking out in the shop, putting their actual eyeballs on those actual brake pads before they sell that job.

22:28Every single job. Well, there's a value to being able to say, I personally looked at this vehicle and, yep, you know, the pads are down. That's the way we've done it for years when it was just Jim and I. Jim would come out in the shop, look at the vehicle before he called the customer, no matter how small. And that's what he's made the guys do forever.

22:48And you know what, it's, it's worked very well. I think that there's been dozens— I say dozens, we've been in business 16 years— probably hundreds of embarrassing situations saved over the misinterpretation of a condition or something like that, right? Um, I don't think them getting up out of the chair to come do it is helpful with our efficiency. Which is why I'm excited for TechMetric, because if we can show that in a video or something and they can stay seated at their desk and just watch the video, I mean, that's a lot better, right?

23:22We're not even, we're not even super fired up about sending those DVIs to customers right now. We're excited about being able to get that information from back to front without somebody having to walk somewhere. When do you go live? June 1st. Okay, how many open repair orders do you have in Mitchell right now? That's not important. What is behind you is not important.

23:51Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain. You know what though, here's the thing, we've, we've already been saying that about our open roof. Well, we gotta— we're gonna have to take this— this taken care of. We're gonna have to get this taken care of. You know what, we'll be getting that taken care of in 2030 if we don't just, we're gonna have to do something, man.

24:07Well, we're talking about it a year ago and you're like, yeah, we have TechMetric, we're just not ready to go live because we got to clean up our work in progress. Yeah, yeah, just do it, man. Bite the bullet. That's what we're doing. Um, some people are uncomfortable with it. Um, most of our crew is young and so they all have their, their temporary login to play around with it right now, right?

24:27Like even the techs, everybody's got the, the temporary thing before the data migration and all that stuff.. And, uh, most of the guys are like, oh my gosh, what have we been doing? Why didn't we have this before? You know, my one— I got, I got a couple guys that are hustlers and these guys are all hourly, but they, they get excited about getting jobs done fast.

24:45And they're like, oh my gosh, this would've been so great to not have to wait on somebody to come back here and look at this thing before I know what I have to do next. Right. Whether I'm keeping it in, whether it's going out or this, that, or the other thing. Right. Cuz if it's a big job, but parts are available, sometimes we don't unrack and rerack.

25:00Right. If I got— if I'm putting a guy— if it's a 5-hour job and Napa's got everything in stock and they're going to have it to me in 25 minutes, I'm not going to— I'm not pushing— I'm not pulling that car out. The thing's already lifted. The thing's already lifted. The wheels are already off, right? If I can get the thing sold, we're doing the job.

25:18Then we're not doing this ring around the rosie BS that some of these shops do. Well, I think you've also got a full staff. Right, and the capacity to do that. We are— so we are one tech per bay. Yeah, it's, it's busy. Wait a minute, one tech per bay? That makes you an evil shop owner. I remember Lucas had his video talking about how one tech per bay is where the math works, and he got crucified by all the, uh, technicians.

25:46I think that, uh, one tech per bay is, um, I wish there was 2 bays per tech, but to get done what we have to get done, we have no choice. We have to. And that's, and that's a whole other conversation with a massive problem. That spot available behind the bay, on each bay, there is, but I mean, the way we operate, flat spots really don't help us out much.

26:13I mean, almost every car is getting under work, under car work done. Every car has to go in the air and get checked over. You know, it's— I guess it's okay if you gotta shoot some plugs in or a purge valve on or something like that, but it doesn't really, you know— and that then that creates a problem. Another— we're— I think people will be surprised, we're relatively high volume, um, you know, parking cars, disabling a car behind a car that's on a lift doesn't really make sense for us.

26:42That's, that's a tricky deal. Well, one of the, um One of the tools that I think you should check out pretty quickly after you get your feet under you with TechMetric and TechMetric is working on, you know, their new DVI, live DVI updates. But Detect Auto has one now where you just hit record and you walk around and you're taking pictures in real time while it's recording your video or your audio narration.

27:12Okay. And it automatically puts the pictures in on the DVI and automatically puts your words in and corrects for grammar. That might be a little tricky for our shop. We like to have a little bit too much fun to have a live microphone in the shop, I think. I don't know how— so I've like— one of my stores has an industrial plant right behind it, and we have the doors open, and there's an enormous amount of white noise.

27:32Oh, I'm not talking about the white noise. I'm talking about the words said. Uh, well, I mean, uh, if you think you can get them to stop, you know, dropping MF bombs for 90 seconds, it's a pretty shoppy shop, Mike. I don't know, it's very choppy. So this shop is very choppy, but the point is, it's— I understand what you're saying though.

27:50The DVI development process time from, you know, 15 minutes, maybe 20 minutes, down to 7 or 8 minutes. Yeah. So if you're cutting half the time out of the DVI for every DVI, that's a huge time tip. Our current system, a lot of it, especially with the shop across the street, them guys, um They're literally taking pictures of stuff and texting it to the writer, and they're literally taking a picture of the checkout sheet and texting it to the writer.

28:16So now you got to read a handwritten checkout sheet. Like, it's just— we're, we're all excited about TechMetric. And so then you got to make sure that your service advisors press down really hard when they're writing on the triplicate, right? So the pink copy gets the— you can read the pink copy as well as the yellow copy. We'll probably still have printed tech sheets.

28:36I mean, you can do it the way you do it, man. You guys make money. We do. All right, I'm not here to judge. Yep, you do better. You do better than I do. So yeah, who knows, they have to look at the numbers, I guess. Who's gonna do that? Not me. So our travel season is kind of coming to a close right now.

28:56We're coming into summer, we have the summer break, spring show season is over. Yeah, kid. Kids are home from, uh, from school, so 15-year-old's going to be coming to work this summer. Nice. See how that goes. I like it. Um, the 11-year-old has lots of summer camps planned, and the 13-year-old is like, no, I think I just kind of want to sit at the house and, uh, do nothing.

29:20And he's going to be sorely disappointed when that's not an option. You know, that's kind of how Jim's son started with us. Um, he was on summer break and it was like, I was gonna say 3, but I don't think it was that many days into summer break. It was like maybe the second morning of summer break and Jim told him, get in the truck, he ain't sitting home.

29:39He's like, that's enough of this. That's pretty much how it started for me when I was 13. Yeah, we ain't doing this. They didn't trust me. Left home alone with the four-wheeler and a bunch of woods. They're like, they're gonna have to come looking for the body. They left me home all summer. Um, but, uh, how was Tools? Tools, you just finished that.

29:59I'll tell you what, it was really great. All-star crew. Um, just a really good time. A really— I'll tell you what too, that event, the level of training there is like underrated. I think everybody thinks because it's a small event that there's Maybe the same great trainers, right? Yeah, it's like all the same people, all the same people are there. Um, the training was really good.

30:27What's that? The same core group of trainers. Yep, yep, the same core group of trainers. They had a lot of good classes. Um, it seemed like to me they had classes for all levels as far as the technical side. Um, and they had a real good list of management style classes, everything from numbers to marketing to delegating and everything in between. It was— there was a whole— I think Rick White did a whole class on delegation.

30:55It was pretty cool. Speaking of management trainers, I sat in on Lucas and Seth. They did a Facebook Live, um, on the diagnostic feed debate, right? But you know it's not going to be a debate because Lucas and Cecil— yeah, yeah, it's really going to be the two of them kind of parroting their, uh, their methodology, right? And I really wanted to go in and troll hard, but I did not.

31:19I resisted, but I did comment a few times. And, uh, you know, Cecil, uh, Lucas made a joke about how, uh, it's a good thing Cecil doesn't have, you know, omnipotent power because he would be out killing some of these people. And Cecil referenced some of the talking heads that, uh, propose other methodologies. And so I just put in the comments, I'm gonna need a list of who Cecil would smite And, uh, and Lucas read it out to Cecil during the live, and she said, Mike's not at the top of the list, but he is in the top 5.

31:56Oh gosh. And he said, and I'm thinking about buying a shop after he, uh, provoked me so badly on the Tectonic stage. So you heard it here first, free diagnostics is the reason Cecil's buying a shop. Oh my gosh. You know, Cecil's gonna buy a shop and start doing free diag. Not for nothing, not for nothing, I've seen of the diag that comes out of these shops, and some of them should consider not charging because that's about all it's worth.

32:23But anyways, some of them— I'm not saying that's all your diag— I'm not saying that's all your diag is worth, but man, there's a lot of people who are like, oh, not charging for diag is stupid, and I like look at what they did and I'm like, bro, you should probably not be charging that person for whatever that is that you did there because that's not— got nothing to do with the price of tea in China and the car's still broke.

32:44At the same time, sometimes percussive testing is worth an hour. I'll tell you what, people want to talk about technician efficiency and they want 17 freaking pages and 4 pictures of documentation and everything else. And when the cam solenoid's stuck and you hit it with a hammer and the car starts running right, I think we're done here. Look, when I first opened my shop, I thought my old systems would keep up, the software that I had would continue to evolve, but as we grew, the slow estimates, scattered workflow, increasing downtime, it really just, it was becoming a real problem.

33:22That's why I switched to TechMetric. It's not just software, it's a complete shop management system that makes my life easier. SmartJobs, instant estimates, integrated payments, integrated financing options. I mean, it allows me to focus on the work that actually makes me money and not get bogged down in the other details. My shop's repair orders have jumped over 300% since switching to TechMetric, and when I need help, their support team responds in real time.

33:45Time. I actually was online with them asking questions just this week, and I got answers in minutes rather than having to wait for callbacks and emails days later. If your system is holding you back, it's time for a change. Tap the link in the show notes and see how TechMetric can help you move your shop forward. I think 3 sentences— well, knowing where to swing the hammer, uh, has some value, right?

34:07I provided a great service. You know what, that car had a— that car had a timing code. Some super duper I charge for diag shop, the technician would have saw the timing code, they would have done a DVI that he called, um, looking at the data on the scanner with the cam out of time and the timing code and the DVI, their first hour diagnostic.

34:27And then they would have wrote a 3-hour testing routine to use a lab scope to tell the customer the thing was out of time when the scan data told us it was out of time. And who knows, who knows, maybe sold a timing chain on an engine. It was a Volkswagen, so the engine has to come out of the car The engine's got to be removed from the car because the timing chain's on the wrong side of the engine and all that stuff.

34:48And, uh, you know, I just took some common sense in 2 minutes and a pry bar and a hammer and hit the cam solenoid with a hammer and freeze it— freed it up, right? I don't know, it's a little— uh, you're a hack. Yeah, apparently. So I had a— I'm a hack. I'm a hack that does not spend 8% on marketing because, um, I don't write 3-hour test routines when it's not necessary.

35:09I had a conversation last night with a friend of ours that is a, is a shop owner, um, and he has very high standards and expectations, and he's struggling to staff technicians, uh, because, you know, the technicians that come in don't follow the same processes that he does. And so I said, hey man, Like, as a leader, my understanding, and I may be wrong here, is to, to set the goals for the organization, is to equip the, the people that I put into the organization with the right tooling, training, and opportunity to achieve those goals.

35:51And as long as they achieve those goals with, uh, proper ethics and proper profitability, I shouldn't micromanage how they get there. Sure. Um, And so if this testing procedure has, you know, 12 steps and takes 3 hours and the technician comes in and through experience knows, wait a minute, I can just put this pry bar here and tap the hammer. And if the solenoid starts working again and the problem smooths out, I have given you the answer to the problem.

36:28But not documented all 12 steps of, uh, the diagnostic trouble tree, does that technician need to be lauded for their knowledge, experience, and efficiency, or do they need to be, uh, corrected for not following the procedure? And who made— who made that shop owner diagnostic god? Who says that they're the ultimate authority on— if, if somebody uses a This is such a complicated, um, it's a new discussion.

37:02Yeah, yeah, this is a complicated conversation because, Mike, let's say, let's say we both have a car that has the same exact problem and you're better at this than me, so you solve that problem in an hour and I take 3 hours to solve the problem. What was the problem worth? It's not worth 3 hours just because I took longer. And I just had this conversation with somebody literally I typed a comment out this morning.

37:27There's a ton of brilliant technicians out there that can get to the bottom of the problem. The issue is a lot of them, the process they would take in the hours and hours and hours and hours it would take to do that, because we're, you know, everybody's got to get the scope out, you know, we'd have to get the scope out and check timing, this, that, the other thing.

37:46How sellable is that to the customer, right? And we run into a situation where a lot of technicians want all this extra time. They don't want to have to swing a hammer all day. Here's the uncomfortable truth. If you don't want to have to swing a hammer all day, if you want to diagnose cars all day long, you better be able to get through 8 a day minimum.

38:06You better be able to consistently turn out 8 cars a day because 95% of cars are not that complicated. 90%, 95% do not require a second hour. I do a ton of diagnostic, like a made-up statistic, 50% of the time. Um, no, seriously, 1 in 20 cars requires more than an hour. So at 1 in 20 cars requiring more than an hour, statistically you only have to go an hour or two every 3 days.

38:34So if 1 in 20 cars requires more than an hour for you, but I would posit that you are on the leading edge of the bell curve as far as experience and systems understanding and diagnostic capability. That's what these technicians present themselves as, Mike. Well, so, so if they present themselves, the value of the job, I would argue, is what the top of the bell curve would take to diagnose it.

39:04Not the, not the trailing edge, not the leading edge, but the average technician. Are you ready to get hate mail? Are you ready to get hate mail? I think the middle I think the meat of the curve is so untrained, I don't think it's fair to the consumer to charge them for that skill set. That's where I think we're at in this industry.

39:23I think— you think the curve is too far to the left anyway? Yeah, I honestly do. Um, I really— what you're saying is the average technician is too stupid to call themselves a technician. I'm saying that the average technician thinks they're— that they're way better than the— at this than they actually are. The average person thinks that they're way better at whatever it is they do than they actually are.

39:47So should the consumer have to pay for that? And let's talk about— they have to pay because it's a business. And let's talk about the market. I wish that we, I wish that we had like a universal, um, aptitude analysis tool where we could set the labor rate based on the skill set of the people working on the car. That's what I always say when people talk about transparency.

40:12Do you set the labor rate lower for your less skilled technician doing brakes than— do you pay the A-tech, or do you charge the customer the same for the A-tech and the C-tech to do the brakes, right? And they do. I know that my CPA firm has partner, and if the partner's spending his time, it's this cost. And if the associate CPA is spending their time, it's this cost.

40:34Sure. And if the assistant to the associate is spending their time, it's this much. And I'm not saying we have to do that, but I am saying that people, people love to blindly say we need to charge all this money, we need to charge all this money. And can you— is the money there? I mean, the, the free market determines what the time is worth, right?

40:55Well, we need to provide the value. Yeah. And we're gonna charge the money, you got to provide the value. I mean, we talk about advocating for the client. Do we have the— what do they call that— the fiduciary responsibility? To spend the client's money wisely and determine that when the technician took a wrong turn and overlooked something simple, but still has all these— the technician did all this testing, has all these results, but should have caught it on step 2 of 12.

41:25I think we have a responsibility to not charge for steps 3 through 12. That, that's my opinion, right? And that's, that's an unpopular opinion in the diagnostic world. It's probably an unpopular opinion in the business world, but I sleep on a soft pillow and we make a lot of money. So So what can I say? Well, I mean, one of the things that you pointed out at Tools that I've heard you say before is you pay the bills with the first 40 hours of your week and you create your legacy with the second 40 hours.

41:53Yeah, yeah. And that's, that's a point I made. If, if everybody wants— that's another thing, that work-life balance is a real hot topic of the last few years, um, and that's fine, and I don't, I don't fault anybody for that.. And it's just, I think that people need to get used to the idea that that's totally fine. If you would like to put in the average effort, that there's nothing wrong with that.

42:17There's nothing wrong with being average. Just go on the US, you know, the US, uh, economic website and look up the average technician pay in the US and expect to collect that for a paycheck. Don't expect to collect $150,000 a year for your average effort. That's right. I mean, is that not make sense? So it makes sense to people who have an entrepreneurial spirit because they're used to working 80, 90 hours a week, always be thinking about work.

42:43I think, um, folks who have no desire to own their own business, who want to have a job that they do well and that they leave at work and they go home and, and their defining characteristic is not their career, they're like, fuck that, I'm not gonna go home and spend another 40 hours a week studying or learning. And that's great, then you're average, right?

43:04Yeah, you're average. That's great, you're average. And it's fine, it's fine. But you don't get to do that— this, this thing everybody says, you know, about the aging body and this, that, and the other thing. Well, you don't get to— you don't get to bring a half a day's worth of production to the table all of a sudden at 40 years old because you don't want to turn wrenches anymore and still get paid more than you would have, you know, doing a full day's production.

43:28Like, that's, that's not how this works. Like, you can't sell that to the customer., right? Like, what's the, what's the breaking point, right? Look at your GP per hour on pads and rotors. What's, what's the breaking point for what we can charge per hour diagnostic? I think that if I went out and collected a bunch of diagnostic people together and I said, guys, I got great news, we're taking a step ahead, we're charging $300 an hour for diagnostic, everybody would cheer, right?

43:56Everybody would cheer if I said I'm going to charge, I'm going to charge, except the customers, Everybody in the diagnostic world, a lot of these techs turn shop, everybody else, they'd all cheer, right? And they talk about why can't we pay a guy to do diagnostics all day and be profitable? Well, $300 per hour, that's probably going to crack maybe the same GP or a little bit less than using that bay to do a brake job.

44:21So yeah, so if you want to know why shops can't be profitable, for diagnos— for having a guy on diagnostics all day, especially if he can't turn at least 8 hours of it. There you go. There you go. Even at $300 per hour, if I'm limited on bay space, I'm better off doing pads, rotors, and wheel bearings in that bay. Sorry, not sorry.

44:47And then what kind of marketing? Then you end up like a— if you charge that much per hour for diag, you end up like a 300% rule shop, and you got to spend a bass boat worth of money on marketing to outrun your freaking poor estimating decisions. So what you're saying is you'd rather be good at fixing cars than have a bass boat?

45:03Some of them. I don't know. I think you need to get a cigarette boat for the big lake. I was just looking at one. I was looking at them this morning. A Chris-Craft Stinger, actually. I want a party barge. I just want a big pontoon with a nice sunshade and a good radio and with a big-ass outboard on it. Would you get one with a ridiculous outboard?

45:21I mean, boards. What if you What if you get— what if— have you seen the Tritunes? I mean, no, I haven't seriously looked at them, like, because I'm not ever going to get a boat like that because I have enough toxic, expensive, uh, behavior traits. I don't know. I think, I think, I think you need a Tritune with two 300 Mercurys on it.

45:45That's what I think. That sounds like a great idea. Can you get one and just let me borrow it? I think the shipping back and forth would kill us. Oh, you can just store it down here in North Carolina. I'll be fine. Oh, just store it at— I, I'm— hold on, I live 500, uh, yeah, 500— 5 minutes from the largest freshwater fishery in North America, but I'm going to store it at Mike's Micro Lake in North Carolina.

46:07That makes sense. It'll be the coolest boat on the lake, dog. I will own this bitch. Um, I want to circle back real quick just because we got to talk about, um, the class that we got coming up. Mm-hmm. Part of the conversation about monitoring advisor time for efficiency in the same ways that we do it for technician time and giving them the tools to be as efficient as possible, um, stemmed, uh, from the conversation about this class that we're doing with Seth in June.

46:39So it's, um, come down Friday, June 12th, and we're doing live shenanigans at Car Fix. At the— actually at the Confessions of a Shop Owner Lounge. Oh, on the second floor of the downtown location of Carfix. But so shenanigans Friday night and then all day Saturday, Seth is teaching a full-day version of the 3-hour class he did at Vision. It's on building your own AI agents and it's all about increasing efficiencies without increasing expenses in your business.

47:10So like my office manager slash bookkeeper slash HR manager slash house mom is very overwhelmed because she's got 4 businesses that she's trying to do the books on all the time. And, you know, there's just a lot of transactions coming in. It's like, well, we can build an AI bookkeeping bot that does a lot of the monotony for her, right? And she is not an HR person, but she takes HR training classes so that she can answer questions and keep us legal.

47:36We can build an HR bot to answer the HR questions for our employees. To save her time and, and steps, right? Um, my service advisors, we can build, uh, you know, an online scheduling bot that we own. We can build a service advisor sales training bot rather than going out and paying thousands of dollars a month for one of these ones that we've all— not even building bots, just other tasks that you just— I mean, I've been writing some process stuff about some basic diagnostic things and laying out tables Man, it'll produce a table in 30 seconds and you have to go in there and make 5 minutes worth of edits.

48:16And what I think the incredible— and I've talked to Seth about it some, I've talked to Keith Perkins about it a fair amount also— is every aspect of your life can be made more efficient. Yep. Using these tools. And so many of us use ChatGPT or whatever at a very surface level. Yep. It's just become our new Google. This stuff ain't going anywhere.

48:35I, I shared with you, my friend runs a 5 $5 billion with a B dollar AI project up here on the lake, 8 minutes from my house. And I toured it a couple Sundays ago. This isn't going anywhere. Can you hear the cooling fans for that plant from your house? No. And, and he explained to me how the newer fans they use have some sub— sub— not subsonic, there's another word for it, but the tip speed.

49:01Yeah, the tip speed is at a frequency where you can't hear. They, they've made improvements on that. Um, companies are not investing. And furthermore, so there's a $5 billion one there, and they're going to do one about 25 minutes southeast of my house that's going to be bigger than this $5 billion one. So, uh, big business is not investing in this for it to go away.

49:23And I think I, I get some feedback from people in the industry, and man, I feel like, man, some of the people, they talk, and I get it, people have concerns or whatever, but You see the talk and it almost mimics what I imagine the talk about fuel injection was in the '80s. I don't miss fuel injections, never going to take off.

49:44A carburetor is the way we're going to do it forever. And dude, I think this is a spot where you either hop on or get left behind. I really do. Um, I'm, I'm as conservative as you could imagine and I'm using AI on a daily basis. Because you're either going to hop on or get left. Yep, it's coming for the job of the people who don't learn how to use it.

50:06Yep, right. It's going to be jobs eliminated, but if you become proficient in using these tools, it's going to turn— and even on the technical side, I think it'll turn an average technician into a good technician, and it's going to turn a good technician, or a real good technician who's invested in using it, into a freaking monster. Well, it's going to create— really is technician service aids.

50:29Like, it's going to go ahead and pull all the OEM service information up for you and have it already there for you. And you're going to be able to say, what's the torque spec on that bolt? And it will tell you without you having to look it up. You know, I can, I can copy and paste my explanation, my technical explanation of what I found, right?

50:45I can leave that in the repair order. I can copy and paste it into ChatGPT, and I can tell it to Uh, you know, summarize this for somebody who is not in the auto repair industry at an 8th grade reading level. And I have something that a service advisor can read directly to a customer no matter what that customer's walk of life is.

51:04And I created it just like that, and there's no more this technical BS that nobody can understand. So these tools are coming and we're all going to use them. The question is, are you going to spend thousands of dollars a month in subscription fees to have the tools that somebody else built are you going to learn to build your own tools, right, and put that money in your pocket so I can go get a— you can go get a Triton with two Mercurys.

51:24Um, so, uh, we'll put the link in the show notes to the class. It's next month. Um, so I know it's a tight window, but I've been talking about it for a little while. If you weren't paying attention, that's your own damn fault. Um, but, uh, you know what, I'll also put a coupon code in there for a discount on the ticket.

51:45I don't know how much the discount will be, but I'm sure it'll be fucking spectacular. Um, so use, use code Confessions. I gotta— don't let me forget to go make that. Uh, use code Confessions. I'm gonna make a mystery discount off the price of your ticket. Uh, and, uh, it'll be awesome. So, oh, I love it. Oh, and we gotta hurry up and get the design in order on the hood.

52:10Everybody who comes is getting a hoodie. And, uh, swag bag and that kind of stuff. So I'm— I've been humping Brandon's leg about setting up our, uh, our merch store on the new— new website's launching like next week. Excited about that too. It's gonna be great. It's gonna be awesome. I love it. Love you. Yeah, buddy. Oh, by the way, 300% stores are stupid.

52:30Yep. Thanks for listening to Confessions of a Shop Owner, where we lay it all out— the good, the bad, and sometimes the super messed up. I'm your host, Mike Allen, here to remind you that even the pros screw it up sometimes. So why not laugh a little bit, learn a little bit, and maybe have another drink? You got a confession of your own or a topic you'd like me to cover, or do you just want to let me know what an idiot I am?

52:49Email mike@confessionsofashopowner.com or call and leave a message. The number is 704-CONFESS. That's 704-266-3377. If you enjoyed this episode, be sure to like, subscribe, or follow. Join us us on this crazy journey that is shop ownership. I'll see you on the next episode. All right guys, AI class. Learn how to use AI so that you can make it your bitch and you don't become its bitch.

53:25Saturday, June 13th, Seth Thorson's teaching a full-day class in Raleigh, North Carolina. Tap the link in the show notes or scan the QR code on your screen to learn more. It's going to be awesome.